1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical-disc recording device such as a CD-RW drive or the like which records data on an optical disc such as a CD-RW or the like, which is used as a data recording medium and on which rewriting of data is possible.
2. Description of the Related Art
On each of an optical disc such as a CD-R to which only appending of data is possible and an optical disc such as a CD-RW on which rewriting of data is also possible, data is recorded in a recording area in recording units called sessions. Each session includes three areas: a lead-in area, a program area and a lead-out area.
In the program area, data is recorded in data recording units called tracks or packets. In the lead-in area, a table of contents of tracks (TOC) is recorded.
A system in which a plurality of such sessions exist in one optical disc is referred to as a multi-session recording system. In the multi-session recording system, respective sessions are given numbers in increasing order, and are referred to as a first session, a second session, . . . .
The optical-disc recording device determines whether or not an (n+1)-th session (where `n` is a positive integer other than`0`) exists based on information in the lead-in area of an n-th session.
For example, when data is reproduced from an optical disc on which data was recorded in the multi-session system, the lead-in area is looked at from the first session in sequence. Whether or not an (n+1)-th session exists outside of an n-th session is determined as a result of whether or not a flag indicating existence of the (n+1)-th session is recorded in the lead-in area of the n-th session.
Even if the flag indicating existence of the (n+1) session is not recorded in the lead-in area of the n-th session, it is possible that the lead-in area of the (n+1)-th session exists. However, in this case, even if the lead-in area of the (n+1)-th session exists, the existence of the (n+1)-th session is not recognized in the standards. Further, there is a possibility that data was recorded but the data should not exist in the current recording. Therefore, data which should not exist exists. (For example, see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 6-349068.)
Specifically, when the flag indicating existence of a subsequent session is recorded in the lead-in area of the n-th session on the optical disc, the optical-disc recording device determines that the subsequent (n+1)-th session exists, and can perform recording data on and reproducing data from the (n+1)-th session.
When the above-mentioned flag is not recorded in the lead-in area of the n-th session, or a flag indicating absence of a subsequent session is recorded there, the optical-disc recording device determines that the (n+1)-th session does not exist, and, therefore, cannot perform recording data on and reproducing data from the (n+1)-th session.
Therefore, either as a result of not recording the flag indicating existence of a subsequent session or as a result of recording the flag indicating absence of a subsequent session on a session of an optical disc, it is possible to disable data from being appended to the optical disc.
For example, writing is possible once on an optical disc such as a CD-R to which appending of data is possible. Therefore, once data is recorded in the lead-in area, after that, re-recording (rewriting) cannot be performed. Accordingly, either as a result of not recording the flag indicating existence of a subsequent session or as a result of recording the flag indicating absence of a subsequent session at the time of recording the lead-in area, after that, appending of data to the optical disc cannot be performed.
Further, rewriting of data is possible on an optical disc such as a CD-RW on which re-recording of data is possible. However, in the optical-disc recording device in the related art, once appending of data to the optical disc is made impossible either as a result of not recording the flag indicating existence of a subsequent session or as a result of recording the flag indicating absence of a subsequent session at the time of recording the lead-in area, after that, appending of data to the optical disc cannot be performed again.